Emoticons!

For many people, especially in western cultures, emoticons are silly and thoughtless aspects of cyber-culture. In my research, however, I found that emoticons have developed throughout history and can play a significant role in how we relate to each other in a world of computer-mediated communication (CMC).

Nowadays CMC is vital in the developed world and its importance is quickly growing in developing nations. CMC helps us maintain our relationships both personal and professional; I keep up with friends near and far through email and Facebook. I text message my classmates. I email my clients and professors. I interview over video chat. Regardless of the medium, emotion and its interpretation plays a sizable role in our ability to communicate via computer.

Here is a fun info-graphic I created to decode emoticons :)

Thesis videos

Towards the end of the spring semester I made some short videos about my thesis.

The videos are along the lines of a public service announcement, and were generally very fun to make; they gave me more experience with Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition, as well.

Take a look...

Workspace Portrait

Last week in the Thesis Making class with Mary Kate Meyerhoffer we took portraits in our workspace.

We came up with a couple branding words first, then planned out the shot.

I chose to do mine in front of my studio space at CCA because this is where I get most of my work done. It was an interesting assignment and gave me a chance to consider what my workspace says about me and why it looks the way it does.

My branding words are casual (but still thoughtful), bright, layered.

I am happy with how the shot turned out, and with my newly clean desk!

Thesis Meetings: 2/25/14

In this week's thesis meeting Scott and I pretty much just went over the notes from my mid-term crit and discussed my next steps.

Comments from critique:
How do I connect the content of the piece with the content of the explorations?
3D printing and replicas. Be sure I understand the benefits and drawbacks.
What is the artist perspective? Meet with CCA faculty as planned but stay focused on what I'm doing.
Do I want to stick with Cézanne's apples or choose different work depending on the exploration?
How does this happen in the real world?

Mid-term critiques, done!

Saturday was a long day of mid-term critiques for our class of 2014. The presentations made for a late night on Friday and an anxious Saturday (I didn't present until 2.30pm), but it means we are one milestone closer to graduating! Hooray!

Listening to feedback post presentation, and smirking, apparently.

For my presentation, I built a phylogenetic tree of sorts representing the different pathways of access I am investigating. (See the matrix of prototypes, discussed in Thesis meetings: 2/14/14)The common ancestor is accessibility, and each of the explorations through which a visitor can interact with or learn about the work fits into one of the four broader categories -- material, visual, dimensional, and historical.

Overall my presentation and critique went well. Plenty to chew on and figure out before the next milestone in March...

Thesis Meetings: 2/18/14

Most of this week's meeting with Scott was spent discussing my presentation for the critique this Saturday.

Here's a summary:

My shift in perspective is key.
The roots of my current investigation are in the way that people who are blind experience an art museum and how that experience could be improved. Originally, I wanted to create experiences through which people who were blind could access art from different pathways.

But, I realized that access is limited for a lot more people that I originally was considering. I shifted from designing something for a specific user group, to designing something for the general public. By representing works of art through different mediums, people can access them from new perspectives and are bound to see or learn something new.

Thesis Meetings: 2/11/14

This week I got feedback on my second RP, for now called Pixeled. This prototype, like the previous one, changes vision from a comprehensive process to an additive process, and asks the question, what will we notice when we deliberately slow down our vision?

In Pixeled, the user starts out by choosing a piece of art to look at. An image of the selected work is projected, but it is a distorted version of the user's selected piece. As long as the user is willing to spend the time, the image will slowly reveal itself.

I used Processing for this prototype. After the sketch is opened and a set amount of time passes, a prompt pops up, and the user can "click to reveal," which will decrease the size of the pixels. The sketch is currently set so the user has to go through 12 levels of de-pixelation before they see the clear image, but this is fully adjustable so I can made adjustments as needed!

Cézanne's Still Life with Apples distorted through 50x50 pixels

A few levels less distorted. The prompt "click to reveal" shows up after a set period of time.

Some clear shapes beginning to form